Accessibility Interoperability Alliance NewsThe news that IBM has joined the AIA significantly strengthens this important cross-vendor initiative.
About eight months ago, on December 10, 2007, a coalition of leading information technology (IT) and assistive technology (AT) companies announced the formation of the Accessibility Interoperability Alliance (AIA). An engineering working group dedicated to enabling developers to more easily create accessible software, hardware and Web products. These solutions will reduce barriers to information and communication technologies that currently exist for people with disabilities in today's digital world. From IT-Director.com, August 31, 2008

E-commerce for the BlindThe Americans with Disabilities Act requires “public accommodations” to be accessible to the disabled as well as the able-bodied. That's why stores, government buildings and churches have elevators and ramps, not just stairs. But when the National Federation of the Blind urged retail giant Target Corp. three years ago to modify its website to aid the visually impaired, Target balked. The disabilities act applied to its brick-and-mortar stores, not its branch in cyberspace, Target's lawyers argued.
From Los Angeles Times, August 30, 2008

Georgia Tech Scientists Develop Use of Tongue as Joystick for the DisabledMaysam Ghovanloo, an assistant professor at the university, reportedly is leading a team who believes that a magnetic, tongue-powered system could transform a disabled person’s mouth into a virtual computer, teeth into a keyboard – “and tongue into the key that manipulates it all.”From Robotics Technology, August 28, 2008

Techshare India 2008 Will be Held in Bangalore on August 29In a joint statement, Royal National Institute of the Blind (UK) and BarrierBreak Technologies today announced to bring to Bangalore Techshare - Europe’s biggest technology event to promote accessible technology for people with disabilities. Techshare India 2008, will be held in Bangalore on 29th August, 2008 on the premises of Mobilty India, J.P. Nagar, Bangalore.
From Moneycontrol, August 27, 2008

For the Advanced in Age, Easy-to-Use TechnologyIN the 1960s, baby boomers, like most young people, could not wait to leave home.
Today, those boomers are trying to figure out how to stay at home, even if they are past the age when their parents made the passage to senior living. Companies that have long profited from the transformation of the counterculture into the over-the-counter culture are creating products that they hope will help them do that. From The New York Times, August 27, 2008

Target to Make Web Site Accessible to Blind in $6 Million SettlementThe Target retail chain will make its Web site accessible to the blind and pay $6 million to visually impaired Californians who have tried unsuccessfully to use the site, under a settlement announced Wednesday. The nationwide settlement, filed with a federal judge in San Francisco, is intended as a model for the retail industry, said a lawyer for the National Federation of the Blind, which sued Target in 2006.
From San Francisco Chronicle, August 27, 2008